Page 59 of Trial of Bronze and Blood
A challenge. “Then I’ll have to prove it to you.”
“I think we’d all like to see that,” Marcus admits beside her. She taps the muscle of his arm with the back of her hand, and he chuckles, the sound low and deep. “I’m serious. You could use a night off too. The world won’t come to an end if you do.”
She wants to remind him that the Faithless don’t allow for nights off, but she doesn’t. Marcus is the only other Faithless here, and the more time she spends with him, the less of their influence she sees.
Cato gets to his feet and so doesthe bard.
“Don’t forget about the festival tonight,” Cato reminds her as he heads for his chambers. “I’ll find another dress for you to wear.”
Marcus gets to his feet once Cato enters his rooms. “And I’m off to bathe.”
He glances down at Dru, gaze soft. “Until tonight.”
Although it shouldn’t matter, she can’t help thinking it sounds like a promise.
After Marcus leaves for his chamber, her leg starts to bounce, her fingers tapping restlessly on the table. She has all this pent-up energy now and nowhere for it to go.
Sabina approaches and sets a jug of water on the table. An idea forms in Dru’s head.If Cato doesn’t want to train, maybe someone else will.
“Sabina,” she starts, and the girl glances up. “Do you want to learn how to defend yourself?”
She blinks her wide eyes rapidly. “I do. Are you offering?”
Sorrow and anger at Sabina’s home situation bubble up inside her. If it were up to Dru, she’d march down to their family home and kill the bastard herself.
But if Sabina ends up in the hands of her brother again, and Dru’s not around, she needs to be able to hold her own against him.
“I am.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MARCUS
Venatus Magister Blaise has always pissed Marcus off.
He first met him on an errand for the Faithless a year before he took his oaths. A prominent senator’s son, everything he has in this life has been handed to him. Including his current position as gamemaster. His worse fault, however, is blaming those less-fortunate than him for his mistakes. The last Marcus heard about Blaise, he managed to get his own slave arrested for pocketing jewelry from a woman Blaise himself was pining after. All to get her attention, and paint him as the hero.
They executed the slave a week later for the crime.
Marcus couldn’t say why he decided to follow Blaise today, only that he’s the most likely to make a mistake between the three Imperium ambassadors. Visiting another country where his father has no influence won’t change his behavior—only the consequences of it.
Marcus sits in the corner of an outdoor tabernae near the temple, wearing a beige tunic, brown belt, and simple sandals to blend in with the other Durevolians. Vibrant shades strung between thebuildings block out most of the sun above him, spackling the cobblestone with varying squares of colorful pigment.
One of his most trusted soldiers, Valente, sits across from him, dressed in similar garb. Short black hair and beard speckled with white, he’s the oldest soldier under Marcus’s command, and his wealth of experience has proven fruitful time and time again. He trusts no one else with this.
Despite both their high-ranking positions in the king’s guard, no one has recognized them.Yet.
“How much longer can this story go on?” Valente asks, finishing his second drink of the long afternoon spent watching their target.
Blaise takes up space at a table directly beside the open window where the barista pours the drinks, legs stretched out carelessly into the walkway. He’s in the middle of some story about a night in Phaedra that’s either greatly exaggerated or isn’t his to tell, commanding the rapt attention of three full tables of Phaedran soldiers.
“Until he gets so drunk he has to take a piss or he loses the attention of the crowd,” Marcus replies.
Valente raises his empty glass. “Here’s to hoping he has to take a piss soon.”
Blaise takes another gratuitous swallow of his wine, gesturing wildly and slurring his words.
“So, about this woman, Drusilla, that you’ve brought here,” Valente begins.
